Version 2: NWDA Cumulus Atmosphere Pack V2 available now

[FrankB]

Hi everyone,

The Cumulus Atmosphere Pack is now available in Version 2!
All previous buyers have been sent a free upgrade today, as a thank you for your support.

The new package contains two pretty much advanced, evolved and complete projects. Check out these two links to see what has been added to the package:

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5676.msg58879#msg58879
and
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5503.msg57047#msg57047

If you don't have the Cumulus Package, yet, it's probably a good idea to look at it again now ;-)
Here's the link to the product page: http://nwda.webnode.com/products/cumulus-pack-v2/

Cheers,
Frank

[rcallicotte]

Thanks for the updates Frank.

[domdib]

A typically generous gesture from you Frank, which was one of the reasons why I was happy to purchase from you in the first place. Many thanks!

[buzzzzz1]

Thanks for the update Frank!  Love that new scene you added, it should be in the TG Museum of Art.   

[choronr]

Thank you Frank for your generosity. Your files have generated a whole lot of inspirations and ideas making this program a lot more fun to work with; and, have reduced the learning curve for many of us.

[PG]

Haven't had the update yet. Could you check the email I registered with frank. Should be the same as the one on my profile here.

[FrankB]

Haven't had the update yet. Could you check the email I registered with frank. Should be the same as the one on my profile here.

Hi, when I look into your profile, it says "email hidden". Can you send your email to me through a PM?
I had indeed one bounce-back email.

Thanks,
Frank

[PG]

Yeah I got it. Very cool update

[reck]

Hello, can I ask a question about the node network? I've noticed that you use the colour adjust shader quite a bit in the node network and I was wondering what the reason was?

I downloaded Luc Bianco's cumulus file as well and noticed the he also uses the colour adjust shader so it looks like quite an important node to use when creating these great clouds.

As i've never used the colour adjust shader before I was wondering what benefit it brings to the images.

Thanks

[FrankB]

the color adjust shader is useful when you would like to manipulate the input color of a shader that reads and works based on color. The cloud layer is one example for that - it uses color information to compute the clouds. Now, the cloud layer for example interprets different aspects of the incoming greyscale color information, to compute e.g. how tall a part of a cloud is, how steep the flanks are etc...
The cloud pack uses the color adjust shader sometimes to move the black point of the incoming greyscale up, or to control the color gamma independently from the cloud layer. Nowadays, the gamma can be controlled inside the cloud layer directly, though.

Regards,
Frank

[reck]

The cloud pack uses the color adjust shader sometimes to move the black point of the incoming greyscale up, or to control the color gamma independently from the cloud layer. Nowadays, the gamma can be controlled inside the cloud layer directly, though.

Regards,
Frank

Hi Frank, at the moment i'm looking at the distant cloud tdg file. In this file I think it just has the one colour adjust node (screengrab enclosed) so in this case is it doing what you mentioned above about controlling the gamma? So without the colour adjust node the clouds would appear darker?

I've been working my way through the pack since I purchased it. It makes great looking clouds but now i'm trying to work out what everything does. I'm altering things and rendering to see what difference it's making but they do take a while to render.

I also see a multiply colour node attached to a constant colour set to pure white, is this there it make the clouds whiter in colour? Also what about the clamp colour function, I don't really understand what this is doing?

Thanks

[Tangled-Universe]

Hi reck,

The answers to all of your questions are no.

Neither the color adjust or multiply color adjust the color of your clouds.
If you look in the node-network all those nodes are involved in adjusting the cloud-fractal, which is black&white.
This fractal only controls shape and density of the clouds, not color.

For adjusting colors of the clouds you need to change the color settings in the cloud node self.

So what do these particular settings do in this setup?

The color adjust indeed adjusts the color/gamma. It works similar to levels in photoshop.
This node "removes" small pieces of clouds floating around the hero-cloud and it also makes sure that the fractal is more "even" everywhere.
It does this by selecting a "color-range" between 0 and 1. So if you increase the black point from 0 to 0.1 you tell this node to expand the color range of 0.1 - 1 back to 0 - 1. I hope that is clear. Reducing gamma in the second tab does exactly what it says. If you reduce it there only the brighter parts of the fractal will remain.
The multiply color with the constant color @ 1 attached to it "blows" the fractal a bit up to make things bigger without having to adjust the actual fractal sizes.

I hope this makes things clear.

Martin

[reck]

You NWDA guys certainly know your stuff  That's a great explanation Martin and is really helping me understand what's going on, with Franks info as well it's all becoming clearer.

I've just been looking at your semiprocedural canyon post and this is looking very exciting. I'm sure i'll be purchasing this as well when you've finished it.

[Aagam]

Good lord these are amazing... I'd love to pick them up as they'd work perfectly for an animation I want to start. Too bad I don't have money 

[reck]

Good lord these are amazing... I'd love to pick them up as they'd work perfectly for an animation I want to start. Too bad I don't have money 

Aagam, have you seen how much it costs? It's just like buying them a couple of pints down the pub